The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

I like a good, gritty and often gory crime novel - one which you can’t put down until you’ve found out ‘who dunnit’.

Despite the hype surrounding the unmasking of JK Rowling as the author, at first I didn’t think this book was up to much.

It took me a while to get into the story about a model who mysteriously falls to her death and the strange private detective hired to find out whether she was murdered or not.

But by the time I was half way through I was hooked by the plot and its characters.

This is actually a very well crafted piece of crime fiction and, unusually, I wouldn’t have put a bet on who I thought was responsible for the crime such is the complicated web of intrigue and likely candidates.

This may be Rowling’s first foray into the world of the crime novel but she’s done it well.

Some authors in this genre fail to give us well rounded interesting characters because they spend too much time setting the scene or on gory descriptions of the crimes.

Rowling has given us the whole package and I hope there’s more to come.